Look, Michelle Obama’s a big girl and she should have known how it would look. (And how the Republicans would make it look — right before the mid-terms! She was a corporate PR person, for heaven’s sake. It never occurred to her?) Am I supposed to say this was perfectly fine just because she’s married to a Democratic president?
Geeze, it’s not as if anyone begrudges her a vacation. But people are desperate. They’re living on food stamps and losing their homes. She couldn’t have gone to Rehoboth Beach instead?
I mean, she’s married to a man who wants to cut our Social Security. A little sensitivity would have been nice.
Am I supposed to say this was perfectly fine just because she’s married to a Democratic president?
Why, yes, of course you are. C’mon Susie, get with the program. /snark
you’re living in an alternative universe of relentless negativity and permanent outrage, fostered and fueled by the white progressive blogosphere.
Oh, THAT’s the problem!
Michelle is the first lady. I’m sure the Spanish people are thrilled to have her visit. It’s a good will tour as much as a vacation. You should know better than to let yourself be manipulated by the right wing noise machine, Susie.
Oh bleh! Taylor Marsh. 🙄
Michelle Obama would do herself some good if she first asked herself, what would Eleanor Roosevelt have done? Can’t imagine Eleanor on a glitzy Spanish vacation, at least not until after she’d visited a few coal mines.
Later today I read that she went because a friend who lost her father asked her to accompany her. So there was a legitimate reason — but it still looks bad.
it only “looks bad” because the rightwingers are getting the press to adopt their spin of the trip.
the obama presidency, like the clinton presidency in the 1990s reminds us that conservatives will take perfectly ordinary things, things that are like what every other president and their family does, and turn it into a major faux scandal. and so we have “holy shit! the first lady went on a vacation abroad to a nice place with a security detail!!!” just like the earlier “holy shit! the president uses a telepromptor when he speaks!!!” which reminds me of the days of “holy shit!!! the white house terminated the employment of some low-level people in their travel office!” and “holy shit!!!! the president got a haircut!”
it’s really amazing to watch.
Susie, does Michelle need a “legitimate” reason to take a vacation? It seems to me that she works hard enough and doesn’t hold grudges. Sorry it “looks bad” to you.
This was after the vacation on Martha’s Vineyard and the one on the Gulf Coast.
But snuzy, that’s what I mean. You knew it was coming. Why didn’t she see it?
People who still have jobs don’t understand the reaction. This is, after all, the administration that wants to cut Social Security, wouldn’t back a large enough stimulus, and hasn’t done anything but the crappy HAMP program to help people losing their homes. The people who still feel secure don’t react the same way.
snuzy, at first I was more where you are (and honestly, I could give a fuck where they vacation), but susie at 11 nails it: when you don’t even have a job and there aren’t any benefits forthcoming, it’s very easy to be bitter. and the wingers fuel that bitterness (in a way that has nothing to do with my alternate universe of relentless etc). am i saying the obamas shouldn’t vacation where they please? heck no, and I could care less.
but politically… maybe a different choice could have been made. i dunno. i’m no genius, and relentlessly negative.
But WHY should Michelle Obama or Barack Obama for that matter be able to vacation where and how they please? The fact is the country’s in a state of emergency and they work for the country and they aren’t getting the job done. So no — they SHOULD NOT be able to vacation where and how they please. Not until we’ve seen both of them actually putting their noses to the grindstone and doing the hard work of improving things for the country. They both campaigned for this job; they both took it on, knowing what would be involved. Firedoglake has a post up about all the US attorney slots still to be filled or still occupied by Bush appointees. Where is the bully pulpit being used to talk to the people about what’s really happening with the economy.
This is the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. We don’t see it because we live in living color and not in black-and-white, and because we give people food stamps now instead of making them stand in bread lines.
But it’s very very bad out there, and the Obamas, both of them, need to work harder to fix it. And we need to make them do it, and we don’t make them do it by defending their pleasure trips.
Ho Hum!
Siberian tiger—It is possible to work hard and vacation in the same life. You should take a pleasure trip of your own. You sound bitter. Michelle took her daughter to Spain. And you want to her to be ashamed for it….
Multiple vacations? During an election year in which Democratic seats are at risk? A family vacation’s one thing, but a vacation, Oprah-style?
This is a couple who aren’t doing their jobs. Did the Obamas vacation during their primaries? Are their jobs more valuable to the Democratic agenda than those of the congressmen and women for whom they should be campaigning? If so, then we should expect nothing from those Congress people who happen to survive this Fall.
And, Ulee, before you tell a person to Lighten Up and Take a Vacation, please consider whether some of us even get vacation days anymore, let alone the job or the income to take time off. Now *that’s* a let ’em eat cake attitude….
ulee — yes, I do think Michelle Obama should be ashamed. 1 in 4 American families are food insecure and 1 in 9 Americans are on food stamps, though the WH just cut the food stamp budget for 2015. I think the left would do a very good job if it shamed the Obamas into taking the economic plight of the American people seriously. And no, I’m not bitter. I’m angry, and I can’t imagine why any leftist in this country isn’t also angry.